Mixing Office and Visio bits

Christopher R Hopkins

I get asked this question quite often so I thought that I would post my view.  There are various documents that discuss client requirements and version compatibility for various Office applications, including co-existence as referenced here…

1) System Requirements : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624351.aspx#section15

2) Coexistence: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2121447

There is a lot of information in both of these articles to digest so let me provide details for the scenarios that I get asked about:

Host Operating System is Windows 7 64-bit or 32-bit…

  • Running Microsoft Office 2007 with Project 2010, Visio 2010, and Publisher 2010

This is a valid scenario and can be configured on a client machine.  To setup this environment:

1. Install Office 2007 first as mentioned in the Coexistence article referenced above.  Always install from oldest version to newest version.

2. Then install Project 2010, Visio 2010, and Publisher 2010.

Note: Office 2007 is 32bit only no matter what operating system you target so this will limit you to installing only the 32bit versions of Project 2010, Visio 2010, and Publisher 2010 on the same client.  You cannot mix 32bit and 64bit Office applications on the same client.

  • Running Microsoft Office 2010 with Project 2007, Visio 2007, and Publisher 2007

This is also a valid scenario.  To setup this environment:

1. Install Project 2007, Visio 2007, and Publisher 2007 first, again installing the oldest versions first.

2. Then install Office 2010.

Note: The version 2007 products listed are 32bit only no matter what operating system you target so this will limit you to installing only the 32bit versions of Office 2010.  You cannot mix 32bit and 64bit Office applications on the same client.

  • Running Microsoft Office 2010 x64 with Project 2007 or Visio 2007 or Publisher 2007

This scenario is not valid as you cannot mix 32 bit Office applications ( the 2007 versions ) with 64bit Office 2010.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/choose-the-32-bit-or-64-bit-version-of-microsoft-office-HA010369476.aspx?CTT=1

In order to run Visio, Project and Publisher on a 64bit Windows 7 client with 64bit Office 2010 installed you must install the 64bit 2010 versions of Visio, Project, and Publisher.

Note: while there are a few scenarios where the client might need to have the 64bit version of the Office 2010 clients installed I typically only install the 32bit versions of Office 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010, and Published 2010 for greatest compatibility.

While you can configure these scenarios on a client machine, if Application Virtualization (App-V) is an option for you then I would suggest virtualizing the applications that do not match the version of the installed Office version.  For example, if you have Windows 7 and Office 2010 and you wish to use Visio 2007, simply virtualize Visio 2007.